Go
 

  Get this audio book:

( Amazon.com )        # of Tapes: 5




Learn More About
Find More Titles by
This Author: Garry Wills
This Narrator: Garry Wills
This Publisher: Recorded Books

The Negro President by Garry Wills

The Negro President

Jefferson and the Slave Power

by Garry Wills


Title Details

Author
Narrator
Publisher
 
Unabridged Edition

Description

In The Negro President, New York Times best-selling historian Garry Wills explores a controversial and neglected aspect of Thomas Jefferson's presidency: it was achieved by virtue of slave "representation," and conducted to preserve that advantage. Wills goes far beyond the recent revisionist debate over Jefferson's own slaves and his relationship with Sally Heming to look at the political relationship between the president and slavery. Jefferson won the election of 1800 with Electroal College votes derived from the three-fifths representation of slaves, who could not vote but who were partially counted as citizens. That count was known as "the slave power" granted to southern states, and it made some Federalists call Jefferson the Negro president--one elected only by the slave count's margin. Probing the heart of Jefferson's presidency, Wills reveals how the might of the slave states was a concern behind Jefferson's most important decisions and policies, including his strategy to expand the nation west. But the president met with resistance: Timothy Pickering, now largely forgotten, was elected to Congress to wage a fight against Jefferson and the institutions that supported him. Wills restores Pickering and his allies' dramatic struggle to our understanding of Jefferson and the creation of the new nation.

People Who Liked The Negro President Also Liked These Titles:
  Glock: The Rise of America's Gun
by Paul M. Barrett

  The Pioneers
by David McCullough

  The Compton Cowboys
by Walter Thompson-Hernandez